


ouranos

by crispytins



Series: aere perennius [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Post-Episode: s04e02 The Darkest Hour, rumination of the concept of death and the phenomena of moving on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26562079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crispytins/pseuds/crispytins
Summary: Lancelot lingers in darkness and awaits the world's reopening.
Relationships: Lancelot/Merlin (Merlin)
Series: aere perennius [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1723933
Comments: 24
Kudos: 54





	ouranos

**Author's Note:**

> twelve years of merlin...that's bonkers. currently on the floor, losing it
> 
> ouranos: greek personification of heaven.

Some people are not destined for good luck. Lancelot knows this and has since become complacent with his poor fate. It’s in the watersheds of life when plants bloomed and died and bloomed again; from the very second he forced himself to grip a sword at the age of eight, the image of his parents’ house curling into smoke still fresh behind shut lids. 

He was sure of this when he came to Camelot by chance, became a nothing to a knight, and then nobody again. The moment he saw Guinevere regard him with a soft passing smile before tucking her head into the crook of Arthur’s neck. 

Lancelot...yes, he was nothing more than a passing stranger in the market. A blank face amongst a brightly colored carnival crowd. There wasn’t any point in kidding himself. 

Some men were not meant to be honored with the stars. They weren’t deserving of silver tales that ended in gentle rustling pages of a book, with satisfaction and goodwill, souls set up to the sun. There were no mages of old to grant him a destiny not his own, to clasp hands with the gods and maybe, just maybe, give him an existence not his own. Lancelot sharpened blades. He ate cold salted pork and scraps. His skin was taut, stretched thin, riddled with scars and needless markings.

Complacency was inevitable. Every burden, every shrewdly placed tack in Lancelot’s timeline, was swept between his bones, where they lay hidden behind a charming smile and warm eyes.

He would never let them see how his heart bled through the grass, the dirt, the stone. 

::

To be a man of little words was the plan. To make his way in the world with his sword as his guide had been the initial plan.

But then he met Merlin.

::

He carries his mother and father in everything he does. 

With every drink he draws for villagers in the square, Lancelot sees his father, fuzzy with memory, giving rations to the people in their meager square. 

For every lady he greets in court, he hears his mother, gently reminding him to be kind, and feels her butterfly bone hands squeezing his. 

When he knelt into ashen rock and heard Arthur pronounce him _Sir Lancelot, Knight of Camelot,_ he thinks of his father taking one final stand, sword in hand, and crashing through their front door. 

He can tick off the people he's lost on his fingers and then some.

"I lost my father, too," Merlin says. "I only ever got to see him for a day, maybe two, before he died." 

Lancelot hangs his head. "You have my sincere condolences." 

"And you mine. It's hard, you know, because people learn _so much_ from their fathers. My mother, she's everything to me, but sometimes, I wish there had been someone else with me in Ealdor to help me." 

"Oh," Lancelot says. He makes a wiggly hand motion in the air and raises his brows. "In the magic means." 

"In the magic means," Merlin confirms, mouth softening. "I feel like it would've made my mother feel better. Less stressed. I was a handful." 

"I was, too, if that makes you feel better." 

"You know what? It does." 

"Does it?" 

"Yeah." 

"Good," Lancelot says. 

"Good," Merlin echoes, smile widening. It's unspoken, but their friendship has always sounded like - 

_You get it?_ Merlin. 

_Of course I do._ Lancelot.

::

Merlin is like him in some ways. Just a few. He’s shy, and the weight of the world sags his shoulders downwards. His heart’s open on his sleeve, ready for the taking, and he wears it freely. There’s an innocence to him, Lancelot thinks. He’s not sure why. Merlin just seems to always see the best in people. 

Arthur. The tittering nobles who whisper of the king’s oaf of a manservant. Lancelot. 

“I think there's good in everyone,” Merlin comments. The universe draws itself out for them, scattering white and gold against dark trees and mountaintops. “But I know what you will say, Lancelot.” 

“You don’t,” Lancelot mumbles, and Merlin laughs beside him. “I’m not the easiest man to read.” It’s said partly as a joke, but there’s a half-hearted weight to it.

The warlock looks at him, then, and smiles; but it’s sad. Merlin says, “You will say that, once again, you are not worthy of any such praise. That you're scarred too deep, that...there is no forgiveness to be found, no solace to be sought. Not when you have fought, killed, hurt.” 

Lancelot doesn't answer. He almost turns away, but Merlin grips his shoulder and it steadies him. 

The call of a night lark passes over the meadows and castle walls, and Merlin says no more. With every passing minute, Lancelot waits for him to get up and leave. Arthur will be up expecting breakfast, and he’ll have Merlin’s hide if he isn’t right on time. But hours pass and the sky turns from black to blue to a bleeding wound, and Merlin does not make any move to depart. He is earnest, in everything he says and does, and stays. His calloused thumb runs up and down Lancelot's shoulder blade.

It’s like making a point, Lancelot thinks, fatigue starting to cloud his thoughts. So stubborn, _all_ the time. He ruminates longer still, and Merlin - 

His words hang in the air, and Merlin keeps on waiting for them to fully sink in. 

If they do, he isn’t sure. But he gets a tight hug from Lancelot either way, and that seems to be a good sign. 

::

Percival keeps on trying to make him see. 

“Merlin is right, you know,” he says one morning over breakfast. “You never give yourself enough credit.” 

“There is no credit to be sought,” Lancelot says quietly. “I do not serve to receive praise. I serve because it is what’s right.” 

Elyan finishes his biscuit in thoughtful silence. “We know, and it’s obnoxious.” He nudges Lancelot with his elbow. “Come on, there are merits in being honorable. Let us give you this.” 

Lancelot entertains them with a smile. "There's no need to shower me with praise or anything. I just want to do the best thing." 

"A moral compass, this one," Gwaine says, warm smiling crinkling his eyes. He pops a grape into his mouth and says, "My friend, you're truly one of a kind. Accept it as is. If we want to say you're a good man, that's entirely our agenda." 

"You don't have to," Lancelot starts, and the knights all begin to clamor at once. Percival whistles loudly, immediately shushing everyone, and leans over his end of the table. 

"Lancelot. You _fool_ of a man. You're our friend," he says firmly. "And we're here for you." 

"You're insane," Gwaine supplies, "and frankly, sometimes even more foolhardy than even I, but our friend nonetheless." 

Lancelot clears his throat, feeling an embarrassed flush in his neck. "This really isn't necessary..." 

"Take the validation, my friend." Leon's calm voice carries from across the table. He's wearing a faint smile, and inclines his head forward. "You're deserving of it." 

Each knight clamors again, and eventually, Lancelot relents. 

He can't help it. 

There's a part of him that thinks them false, for seeing worth where often there isn't. But who is he to disagree with family?

::

Lancelot has been in Camelot for upwards of eight months. 

He's memorized every nook and cranny and taken Merlin into the kitchens to nick biscuits after hours. He and Gwen walk through the palace gardens, and Arthur trains him down to the bone every morning. The knights become brothers, and then more than, because there are bonds stronger than blood, than silver weapons in the armory. 

The evenings are quiet, filled with soft shuffling feet in the corridors, and watching Merlin's eyes whir gold in the darkness of his small apprentice room. 

He wouldn't give up this life for anything else. 

Until. 

_“I look at you and wonder about myself: would I knowingly give up my life for something?”_

_“Well, you have to have a reason. Something you care about,” Merlin says. His face grows solemn, subtly so. "Something that's more important than anything else."_

It's said that the Knights of Camelot, Prince Arthur, and the manservant embarked on a quest to the Isle of the Blessed.

Five knights rode out at the break of dawn, and only four returned.

The manservant locked himself away for three days to follow.

He did not speak, save for the occasional ominous mumble of, _this is my doing._

::

Deciding to enter the veil was Lancelot’s own decision. He wants to tell Merlin as much, to tell him one last time that he is not to blame.

But the Cailleach is stern. 

“You cannot reach him,” she states, voice rumbling like a summer storm. “The gateway is closed.”

He makes an effort to speak to the Dorocha, but they aren't interested in conversing. Many times does he attempt to open his mouth and ask about whence they came, to which he only receives a cold stare in return. The tittering darkness claws at his tunic, whispering loudly and yanking at his worn cloak, shrouding him beneath their silhouettes.

The days became months, and months became years. Lancelot’s eyes adjusted to a world void of sunlight, and his bones fell away into cold shadow. Any steps forwards or back felt like crossing a frozen sea. 

The Cailleach thinks it all distantly funny. “You are mortal no longer,” she observes, looking Lancelot up and down. “And yet you still crave connection, as any human might.” 

“I’m mortal still,” Lancelot bites back, but it's strained. The Cailleach’s lip tugs upwards. The numbness of Nothing is starting to sink in. She draws her fingers through his hair, before settling her fingertips just above his jaw, which is mostly composed of soot and smoke. It trembles at her touch. 

“It is Emrys you seek.” She speaks decidedly, probing through his thoughts and finding no denial. There was a burning hole roaring through his form, but he remained rooted to his spot. 

The Cailleach tapped her staff once against the spirit realm’s bottom, letting the echo shake him to the core. “We have discussed this before. You may watch him, young knight, but that is all you are to do.” 

"But he needs me," Lancelot says quietly. "He doesn't have anyone else."

"He has his mentor." 

"His mentor does not fully understand." 

"Then what, Sir Lancelot, do you suggest?" 

The realms hums with the crackling of gravel against ice, and Lancelot straightens his shoulders. He repeats the same plea he's spoken into the cold air for long, yawning months. 

"Let me go to him, and I will repay you," he states firmly. 

The Cailleach smiles. 

"Please," Lancelot urges, voice edging higher, "I just want to tell him that I -" 

"That you're what?" she cuts in icily. "Young knight, I understand that this sacrifice was yours to make. But Emrys is making his own way into the world now." 

_Alone_ , he thinks. _It's Merlin against the world._

"I worry for him and the trials he will encounter." 

A dark look passes over the gatekeeper's features. Her frown deepens into her ashen skin as she utters, "As do I. Destiny, though, is a meddlesome thing. We cannot prevent events already set into motion."

Lancelot already knows this. But it doesn't prevent him from briefly, just briefly, entertaining the idea of coming back through the veil. He thinks of the soft grass beneath his feet on the training ground, the trees he'd dare Gwaine to scale with him. He thinks of the seasons, the yellowed letters signed with _Much love, Merlin_ at the bottom, and getting the happy ending his mother and father did not. 

_I want to go home,_ he thinks.

_I want to go home._

But he doesn't say that. Instead, he inclines his head slightly and steps back into the shadow. 

The cover of black smoke envelopes him, and the Dorocha's gleeful shrieks sink into his skin. 

:: 

He forgets what the moon looks like. The feel of water on his skin, cleansing him, making him whole. 

He feels himself fading as the nights grow long and looks down at his arms, where scars and nicks are marred by a thin layer of smoke. 

There are glimpses of the outside world that bleed into the spirit realm, and his mother's laughter rings in his ears in cold blistering silence. 

Lancelot waits. He pleads, expecting nothing. 

He does not remember the touch of fingers against cloth, the feel of leaves beneath calloused hands.

To feel again, he thinks, is all that I wish. 

And he waits, and waits, to have a purpose.

_"You will make history," his mother had said. "Your story will be known by all, far and wide."_

::

_The water will bring you home,_ the spirits whisper. _The water will deliver you._

:: 

The last thing Lancelot remembers is seeing a woman in black by a lake. She beckons him sweetly, drying him, and there is no sound in his head. 

Deliverance is empty, and feels as such when he's entrusted with a golden band and a course set for Camelot. Her hands are cold, and the air is dry, and he is struck, suddenly, by his ability to feel. 

_The water will bring you home. The water will deliver you._

And so it does.

**Author's Note:**

> chill with me on twitter @hawthorias, kudos and or comment if u enjoyed the ride and to anyone still here, have a good one, The Best One


End file.
